Development of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation

This article investigates the possibility of a contagion effect in each of fourteen Latin American republics from 1949 through 1963. Using a data set drawn from the Hispanic American Report, riot frequencies are compared with the Poisson and contagious Poisson distributions. The authors find evidence of contagion in six countries, and suggest that contagion as a concept encompasses a variety of behavioral processes. In addition, the authors attempt to reconcile contagion studies with more traditional studies of political violence. The purpose of this article is to examine the possibility of a &dquo;conta-gion effect&dquo; in domestic rioting in Latin America. The article will consist of a statistical examination of events data for twenty Latin American republics, and will offer conclusions on the extent to which riot conta-gion appears. CONTAGION AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES Men always have been influenced by the actions of others. Virtually every form of human behavior has induced imitation. The phenomenon of contagion, it has been argued, rests on an assertion that human beings are basically imitative and will respond directly to the behavioral cues of others. That extreme hypothesis, endorsed particularly by Gabrie